Pre-production for an educational game

[RaptorMoonX]

I'm creating an educational matching game in Flash that teaches multiplication (up to 12 x 9) and division (single digit numbers only) to 3rd graders. This game is my project for my certificate capstone and I am trying to make sure I cover all the bases before I go see my instructor on Thursday (he'll be unavailable for 3 weeks after this). So far I have the following completed (or really close to completion):

• game proposal
• mathematics tables
• flowcharts detailing game play

Storyboards will be completed at a later date (while this instructor is unavailable) since I have a very hard time doing any type of drawing.

Is there anything else I could be missing? I'm making this as complete as possible. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

[kbaxter]

How big a project is this? What does your timeline look like? How many Flash games have you built before? Do you have a realistic estimate for how long it will take?

I think your next step should be scheduling milestones for the game's development. I'd also try to build a playable prototype of your core gameplay. It's hard to know whether or not something will be fun until you can actually play it, and it's very easy to fall into the trap of doing too much designing on paper and not enough prototyping and iterating.

[RaptorMoonX]

This project is for the capstone course for my Interactive Entertainment Technology certificate. I am taking it independent study, which means I have to find all the answers myself and only have an instructor as an advisor. I was asked to make a complete, functioning game with all associated documentation with a due date of 13 May.

The game, itself, is being created as part of another course (Flash Game Programming II) using Flash Professional CS5. I have been working on pieces of the game, which are being submitted for the programming course every 2 weeks. This is my first real game being created in Flash (I created much smaller games in the first class) and this is also the first game I’ve had more than 1 week to complete (in my previous Interactive Entertainment Technology courses we were told to do “pre-production”, but that only consisted of a Word document with screenshots and details of such).

PS It's also very refreshing to be talking to another female within the game industry. For my previous courses, I was told to e-mail someone in the industry and have questions answered. I never got replies from anyone!